@Takuan: You're right! That's what I was thinking as I was watching that guy detonate the box -- "wouldn't it be funny if that was a box of dog poop?"

That building is a lawyer's office, so I'm sure there were plenty of reasons to mail them a turnip! :-P

Haha, I work in the building next door to the building with the bomb threat, and they sent in a little robot to retrieve the "suspicious package."

Check out the photos I took from our office window:

http://indiana.typepad.com/fwob/2008/03/fwob-exclusive.html

They need to make a t-shirt out of this! I know a lot of English/History nerds (like myself) who would totally wear it.

MBourgon,

I am a lefty. And almost any pencil I use, no matter how hard the graphite is, smears. I've sort of accepted it as a fact of life.

I haven't seen any mechanical equivalent of the Blackwing, but then again I'm not a huge mechanical fan.

Let me look around, and check back here, I'll let you know!

-Andy

Haha, Mark -- One more thing for the US to ban. Then they'll be expensive because they're contraband, instead of because they're out of production. Good call about the Palomino -- they're fun and stylish. Check out the Helix Oxford, too -- they aren't much to look at, but they write really well:

http://www.pencilthings.info/pencil_things/2007/05/pencil_points_h.html

The prettiest pencil I've seen in a while is the Rhodia pencil. I'm sure as an artist you've come across these, or the really really nice paper made by Bloc Rhodia:

http://www.pencilthings.info/pencil_things/2007/06/pencil_points_r.html

Thanks for the link -- any time you want to discuss the finer points of pencils (pun, of course, intended), look me up!

-Andy
andy@welfle.com

That's what's so mysterious about it, RacerX... They say the reason they don't make it any more is because the ferrule machine is broken. But apparently it is an easy fix.

Maybe it's a vast ink-stained conspiracy to keep the pencil fans down?

Thanks for linking me, Mark! I do enjoy my Blackwing, but like you, Thorzdad, I wouldn't drop $35 for a single pencil again. It's in my collection, and there it will stay.

-Andy
andy@welfle.com

Go Ninjas! MUHAHAHA!

@Meredith with the circuit board bracelets: Your roommate could make a lot of money if he sells those online. I know I'd get one. Or five.

Come to Fort Wayne, Indiana, Cory! I know there's not much here, but we really need to hear what you have to say. At least most of us do -- you're preachin' to the choir for me, but that doesn't mean I want to hear you talk.

Whadd'ya say? At least Indianapolis... Or even Chicago...

I think it looks great. I would just recommend that you add your author's byline to the RSS feed. I read BoingBoing via Google Reader, and now I don't know who posted what. I always like to see, because sometimes I'm just in a Cory Doctorow mood, y'know? (-: